Warning: If you haven’t found the time yet to watch the final episode of Game of Thrones, do not read this post.

As with all good stories, Game of Thrones had a theme and a story arc and writers David Benioff and Dan Weiss remained faithful to both in devising the final episode. The theme, of course, was: Power corrupts; and the story arc, therefore, was a transition from corrupt rulers of the Seven Kingdoms to an incorruptible ruler. Simple, but after eight seasons of action, the writers had painted themselves into a corner with little room to improvise to satisfy fans.

“The Undiscovered Country is that rare thriller where the reader can relate. [Nemeth] uses real frustrations we have with both the health care system and hose closest to us to explore themes of identity and secrets that reverberate from the past. The result is a one of a kind story in the best way.”

Read the whole review here:

Mike Nemeth’s The Undiscovered Country

I’m grateful to Book People and Scott, in particular, for this review.

Mystery People is a book store within a book store – Book People book store of Austin, Texas, reputedly the largest independent book store in America. Recently Mystery People did a Q&A with me that I found particularly insightful.

You can read it here:

Q&A with Mike Nemeth: institutions as the enemy

Enjoy!

I wrote an article for the Suite T blog on Southern Writers Magazine. The topic was the importance of understanding genre.

You can read it here: http://southernwritersmagazine.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-importance-of-genre.html

Hope you find it useful.

I wrote a small piece for the Killer Nashville blog on whether an author should follow a genre formula or write freestyle and let the chips fall where they may.

You can read it here: https://killernashville.com/formula-or-creative-freedom/

Hope you find it useful.

“Th Undiscovered Country” takes place primarily in Augusta, Georgia, a lovely city in which I served in the Army. Augusta Magazine caught wind of “The Undiscovered Country” and published this nice piece about the book.

Short Takes: may 2018

I greatly appreciated their kind words.

Net Galley is a service authors use to post their books online for objective reviewers and members of the press around the country. Here are a few samples of reviews of “The Undiscovered Country”.

Annemarie Barbato https://www.netgalley.com/book/131785/review/219249

Faye Dasen https://www.netgalley.com/book/131785/review/157483

Jeanette Melton https://www.netgalley.com/book/131785/review/401307

Take a moment to read the unbiased commentary.

The April 24, 2017 issue of Publishers’ Weekly carries a review of my debut novel, Defiled. It is a privilege and an honor to be reviewed by the industry’s premier magazine and I am grateful. Relatively few books are accorded this honor.

I found the review to be accurate in both its praise and its criticism. As a debut author I am certainly feeling my way around a dark room hunting for a light switch. For example, the reviewer said, “… Nemeth writes well and knows how to build suspense …”. I’ll take that as high praise and encouragement to keep writing.  The reviewer also said that my characters could have more depth.  I’ll take that as constructive criticism.

Over the weekend I attended a writer’s workshop in Atlanta and was inspired by Chuck Sambuchino’s speeches (you know him as the editor of Writers’ Digest) and a meeting with Mark Gottlieb of Trident Media. These soirees are always the source of insightful information about the writing craft and the writing business. They also provide chicken soup for the writer’s soul as we socialize with hundreds of kindred souls struggling with an amazingly common set of publishing problems. We are not alone. In fact, like salmon swimming upstream to spawn, we are in an overcrowded marketplace and, like the salmon, most us will be eaten by “bears.”